The primary reason I value this research is because you can BELIEVE it. This is not some outfit surveying their customers or blog readers. This is professionally conducted, statistically-valid research that I feel comfortable using with clients.

The latest report on social media usage among US online adults contains no real surprises. Perhaps more interesting is what is NOT there. Let’s look at it briefly from both sides.

What’s there.

The report says that 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind. Despite recent growth by Pinterest and Instagram, Facebook remains the dominant social networking. A striking new revelation is that a large number of users are now diversifying onto other platforms — 42% of online adults now use multiple social networking sites.

While all of the major sites experienced growth, Facebook’s 71% user rate among online adults represents a significant increase from the 67% of just a year ago.

Facebook also has the broadest appeal and is used across a diverse mix of demographic groups. Other sites have developed their own unique demographic user profiles:

Women are four times as likely as men to be Pinterest users.

LinkedIn is especially popular among college graduates and internet users in higher income households.

Twitter and Instagram have particular appeal to younger adults, urban dwellers, and non-whites.

There is substantial overlap between Twitter and Instagram user bases.

Facebook and Instagram exhibit especially high levels of user engagement: A majority of users on these sites check in to them on a daily basis.

What’s not there?

Here are a few revelations that are not explicit in the report.

First, where is the decline in Facebook usage we have all been hearing about? This report shows that Facebook usage is GROWING, but people are spending more time in other places too.

It’s also interesting to think about the Facebook-Instagram dynamic. Facebook acquired the non-revenue producing company in early 2013 for $1 billion. That raised some eyebrows at the time but look at the graph above and start to combine some of these numbers in your head and you’ll see why it probably made sense.

In fact it begs the question, will there be further consolidation in the social networking industry? The primary revenue model for a social media company is to 1) collect personal information that can be turned into targeted ads and 2) increase time spent on a site so more ads can be viewed.

As Facebook (and Google and Twitter) all aim for the same attention and the same ad revenue, isn’t some consolidation bound to occur as organic growth becomes more difficult to sustain? We already know Facebook made a run at Twitter and Snapchat. Wouldn’t a Facebook-Pinterest consolidation be a match made in heaven?

Finally, I had to scratch my head and wonder why Google Plus was not included in this survey. I can kind of understand that YouTube (primarily a broadcast channel) may not be in the same category as these other social networks. But where is Google Plus?

I went right to the source and asked Pew Center Director Lee Rainie why this wasn’t included. Here’s his answer: “We’ve asked about Google+ in the past and were worried when we heard respondents being interviewed that they weren’t sure if we were asking about the social networking platform or more broadly about use of any Google product. That was a while ago and we will likely be including Google+ the next time we ask people about social networking platforms.”

It’s interesting that there might be some brand confusion among the general populace around Google Plus. Might suggest that G+ needs to do some advertising to increase awareness?

According to the latest data from The Social Habit, American social media users 12+ roll out of bed and check Facebook … and another survey question confirms that about the same number check it out right before they go to sleep!

As you can see in the chart above, nearly 30% of Americans who use social media check out YouTube in the morning and more than 20% read message boards, blogs and Twitter.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of some of the amazing data Edison Research has collected and displayed in the new Social Habit report. The survey looks at detailed social media habits and usage levels across demographic categories and includes other questions such as …

Is the usage of social media platforms such as Facebook, Google Plus and Pinterest going up or going down?

Trends regarding clicking links, social sharing and other online habits.

Social media versus other types of recommendations and the influence on purchasing decisions.

Where people are getting information about their favorite brands.

Critical links between social media and expectations for service response.

And there is so much more. This is incredibly important and impactful research because it isn’t your typical social media survey of “my blog readers” or “magazine subscribers.” It was completed by Edison Research, one of the most respected research firms in the world.

When I first saw the first cut of the information that is going to be available in this report, my reaction was “WOW. This is mind-blowing.”

There’s still time to subscribe to this edition and also to connect with myself, Jay Baer, Tom Webster and Jason Falls on an October 11 webinar discussing the results. This is a great value that even small companies and solopreneurs can afford. I’m not prone to the use of grandiose adjectives, but this truly is the most valuable piece of social media research I have seen. And I hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity to create competitive advantage for yourself and your company!

One of Mark’s central observations — that a public company must find ways to grow, and Facebook’s only path to do that is through you and me — was particularly insightful and, for some, alarming. I’ve been studying Facebook for five years as a researcher, and after seeing our most recent data on social media behaviors I can tell you this: It’s scarier than you think.

In data that my company (Edison Research) just released yesterday, we found that 54% of all Americans age 12 and over have a personal profile on Facebook. This represents some modest growth over last year’s 51%, but not hockey-stick growth, so one might be tempted to see Facebook’s rise as slowing down, especially when that growth is trended over the past five years.

Not so fast. Numbers like “54%” don’t tell the full story.

First of all, it is important to know this: in the same report, we show the percentage of Americans 12+ who have a personal profile on any social network as 56%, and no other network is even remotely close to Facebook. When we talk about social media in this country we are talking about Facebook, plain and simple. The other thing to note about that 54% is it’s an average that masks some intriguing demographic disparities. Note the breakdown of social media usage by demographic below: (and remember, Facebook is used by 96+% of these Americans)

There are two important stories here.

The first speaks to the saturation that Mark wrote about, but in a different light. For the second year in a row, the growth for Facebook has really been people aged 45 and over. Indeed, the 12-34 demographic has largely been static since 2010. Certainly, it isn’t wrong to think that it’s pretty much all ashore that’s going ashore with younger demographics. And, as Mark correctly pointed out, as Facebook’s growth with older demos slows, the company will need to find ways to wring more data out of us in order to feed their shareholders’ insatiable hunger for growth.

The second story, however, is more subtle. As I noted earlier, usage by the 12-24′s haven’t really grown appreciably since 2010. But look where they are “stalled” — at an 80% adoption rate. Now, getting 80% of American youth to do anything is an unbelievably powerful construct to get your head around.

You can’t find any other media property remotely close to that. Heck, 80% of 12-24s don’t have smartphones, or landlines, or read the newspaper, let alone use any one brand or product. That 80% use of social media (i.e. Facebook) is remarkable, to say the least.

Eventually, those 24-year-olds turn 25, and those 34-year-olds turn 35, and so on. Gradually, as these younger demographics age into older demographics, they will take these learned behaviors with them. In that sense, it’s like smoking. Facebook has changed the behavior of Americans in their formative years, and they will take those learned behaviors with them.

With nearly 8 out of 10 young Americans making Facebook the hub of their online lives — and, thus, their lives – the ways in which they consume and share information have changed irrevocably.

Consider the number of Americans who have the “social habit” and check their profiles several times every day — while Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm prioritizes the information they receive based upon our personal interactions — and you can begin to see just how much sway Facebook holds over what we know as Americans. These 12-24s are literally growing up with the news and information they are exposed to being curated by their friends. And by Facebook.

As a parent I am keeping a wary eye on this. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

What do you think? Am I overreacting? What do you see in the data?

Tom Webster is Vice President of Strategy for Edison Research, a custom market research company best known as the sole providers of Exit Polling data during U.S. Elections for all the major news networks. Webster specializes in drawing insight from social media data, and writes about these topics at www.brandsavant.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Webby2001.

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